Claude

Unfortunately that isn't true. Even the lowest level meetings with government experts have an almost full interpretation regime, with close to 20 languages. This is extremely expensive of course, and it requires the presidency to book meetings 8 months in advance! On the other hand, many experts don't speak English well enough to discuss very technical matters, so it would be unfair to impose English on everyone, except on diplomats who are supposed to speak and understand several languages (the English diplomats generelly speak good French, the second EU language) The best thing would be to limit interpretation to 3-5 languages, like in many international organisations like the UN. Two anecdotes on interpretation in meetings that I have attended: - At at diplomatic conference of a UN agency, negociations were difficult and long, the meeting was suspended at 6pm to resume the same evening for a night session. At 9pm most of the 100+ delegations had come back from their hotels, the meeting started, but after two minutes the argentinian delegate complained that thare was no spanish interpretation. As there was indeed no spanish interpreter available and this was against the meeting rules, the chairman had to end the session immediately, sending the 200 delegates away. - In 2005, my country had the EU presidency and I had to chair an expert meeting in the Council. I was happy to announce that for the first time for that sort of meeting, interpretation from and into Maltese language was available (Maltese interpreters are rare and the Maltese delegates speak excellent English anyway). But unfortunately no Maltese delegate was present for the meeting ... The idea of the Economist author for Brussels to switch to English as a dominant language is unrealistic, as French is by far dominant, except in the EU "ghetto". Theoretically, the city is bilingual (French/Dutch), but 85% of the population has French as the first language and knowing Dutch is not really necessary. And native French speakers are as reluctant to learn other languages than native English speakers.

It's also kinda unreal to expect the average American to buy a house that costs a minimum of three times what they make, yet that is where we are today. The price of homes across the country is insane compared to what we make. But in other countries it is much worse. Ten years ago, my appartment (2 bedrooms) cost 5 times my annual salary. In Spain, many people are forced to take a 50 year loan to be able to afford to buy a home. Is the US situation really insane in that respect?

No, maybe they were told the tape was not available because it had been cut up for the LP release.

Why would they cut up the original 3-track tapes instead of a stereo copy? That sounds very unprofessional to me. Maybe the 3-track tapes were just lost or misplaced, or unusable for another reason.

It's not a technical defect, they had put a wrong track on the CD, which is already elsewhere in the set.

Another recommendation for OpenOffice. I use it at home, but I don't much experience with it. Some large public administrations here in Europe have switched to Linux and OpenOffice, so it fulfills professional requirements. It's the ideal alternative for home users who don't want to spend big bucks on software. http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/1705

Jim, how much is the Amazon provision for affiliate sites? I've been using the Organissimo links every time for my purchases (at least $2000 in the past 6 months), most of the done at Amazon marketplace sellers. Is there something in their affiliate system that privileges new customers and doesn't make you benefit from the purchases made by regular customers?

The auction seems to have been deleted, there is no NATHAN-DAVIS-paris-reunion-jazzbuhne CD currently listed. Of course it's not legit to sell CD-Rs, including an offer to sell an LP together with a CD-R copy of the same music.

They seem not to have been integrated into the new forum software, but the search script is still on the server: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/aff_search.php Bookmark this link to use it as a hub for your Amazon and CD Universe purchases. Just select the store from the list and hit the arrow (no need to enter a search term). This will set the referrer that will make Organissimo benefit from your purchase. (Jim, please rectify if that's not accurate).

Virenque even has a "daily" column (though I couldn't find a more recent one) on the Eurosport site: http://www.eurosport.fr/cyclisme/tour-de-f...to1257085.shtml

Maybe no shipping to Europe, but there are better deals available here: http://product.half.ebay.com/_W0QQprZ3188214

This is no surprise of course, as doping is still widely spread. I'm wondering how many Tour editions screwed up by doping incidents it will take before a clean cut is made. Some teams really think they can sit this out and doping will be tolerated (either officially or by lax controls). This edition is a huge success so far for my country (2 riders among the top 20), but I can't feel good about that because the event and the whole pro cycling sport is a joke, and I don't trust my countrymen either. It's not the best rider who wins, but the one who wins the poker game of continuing to cheat and not being caught.

On the first pressings, there was a wrong track on CD1, but I I don't remember which one it was. The buyers received a replacement CD.

I want this one, in brown I actually like the Jarrett T-Shirt, but it's too large for me.

A couple of new Mercury and Impulse! titles will be released this year, as indicated on the preorder page of Acoustic Sounds http://store.acousticsounds.com/preorder.cfm?Field_cat=5 - Clifford Brown & Max Roach - A Study In Brown - Sonny Rollins - East Broadway Rundown - Duke Ellington & Coleman Hawkins - Roy Haynes - Out of the Afternoon And on the Pure Pleasure label: - Gil Evans - New Bottle Old Wine - Ben Webster - Atmosphere for Lovers and Thieves (Black Lion) - Charles Mingus - Mingus Dynasty

I can't watch the Tour TV transmissions, because of this annoying sound effects tape loop they are playing all the time when a certain motorbike camera is on. It's the motor of a bike roaring two times, and then someone screaming "YEAH YEAH ... Yeah yeah yeah" (2 long yeah and 3 shorter ones), looped at 15 second intervals. It's supposed to mimmick live sounds, but it's so amateurish. At the London stage individual time trial), I first thought it was the team manager of a certain team, driving behind his racer and motivating him, but then he could be heard with every racer. And now the "YEAH YEAH ... Yeah yeah yeah" guy is in the Alps, at every street corner of the 200km stage. On all the TV channels showing the Tour.

Me too. I saw the news this morning (i.e. 10 hours ago) on the german spiegel.de site and I checked Google News US and UK, but no one else was reporting it. It that moment, it almost looked like a hoax.

Great news. Hopefully that means some people will get rid of their LPs ...

Thanks wolff, As far as classical goes, I'm a bit reluctant to buy LPs and I prefer SACD or other hi-rez digital formats, such as DAD (24/96 DVD). Classic Records is also releasing the Everest stuff on HDAD (a hybrid disc with a DVD-A and a hi-rez DVD-V side). I love audiophile vinyl reissues for jazz, but for classical I don't like the surface noise on the much more frequent quiet passages.

If the Statue of Liberty and the Christo Redentor can be nominated, he should be too:

I've heard only negative things about the Blue Note DMM pressings as well. But it has nothing to do with the DMM (direct metal mastering) process itself, as there are many great sound (non-Blue Note) DMM pressings around . I've been buying a few Enja LPs lately, released in the mid 1980's and made of analog material. They sound warm, dynamic and detailed.

I hope people don't think the DMM process is the reason why those Blue Note reissues sound poor. All the DMM pressings I have (jazz and classical) sound great. The sound problems of the french Blue Note DMM pressings must be due to inferior mastering.

Instead of clicking on the link to the zip file, better point to the link, right click and choose "save target as ..." and select a download folder. When the download is finished, open the file from the folder on your hard drive that you chose to download it to. http://www.organissimo.org/mp3s/ELJF.zip

http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/record_po...?record_id=4799

In the meantime, you can use (and bookmark) this link: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/aff_search.php